runner-up in projet montréal leadership race collected most donations, financial reports show
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luc rabouin won projet montréal’s leadership race this spring, but it was the runner-up in the contest who was the most popular in terms of donations, the candidates’ financial reports reveal.
gracia kasoki katahwa, who is borough mayor of côte-des-neiges—notre-dame-de-grâce, collected $20,871 from 168 contributors during projet montréal’s campaign to replace outgoing leader and montreal mayor valérie plante.
katahwa’s fundraising outstripped rabouin, the latter reporting 129 contributors giving $20,775. rabouin won his party’s nomination with 59.2 per cent of the votes in the fourth round of voting by projet montréal members, while katahwa obtained 40.8 per cent.
the candidates’ financial reports, obtained from élections québec, show the other four candidates who entered the projet montréal leadership race mustered less than $10,000 combined.
most of the latter amount was collected by ericka alneus, a projet montréal councillor in rosemont—la petite-patrie borough, who reported $9,070 in contributions from 65 donors.
laurence lavigne lalonde, borough mayor of villeray—st-michel—park extension, reported collecting $550 from 27 donors, while former projet montréal party president guedwig bernier got $295 from three donors. lavigne lalonde has since announced she won’t be a candidate in the nov. 2 montreal election.
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lavigne lalonde’s campaign organizer told the gazette that the candidate actually collected $3,570 from 27 donors and explained there was a defect with the platform her team used to collect online contributions. the u.s.-based platform hasn’t released the funds to her campaign yet. an additional report for the missing contributions will be submitted to élections québec shortly, the organizer said.
nominations for the leadership of projet montréal closed on jan. 31, the leadership campaign officially began on feb. 3 and the vote was held on march 15.
alneus and bernier ended their campaigns in the red, reporting debts under $700 each. lavigne lalonde reported a debt of $2,800, including $2,069 in unpaid bills from suppliers, but her organizer explained that the suppliers will be paid once the platform releases the contributions and her campaign balance will be a small surplus.
rabouin, who is borough mayor of plateau mont-royal, and katahwa each ended their leadership campaign with a surplus of $388 and $423, respectively.
lachine borough mayor maja vodanovic, who announced she would run for the party leadership but withdrew in january, reported no contributions and no expenses.
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“at projet montréal, we believe that partisan democracy is about more than the number of donations raised,” party spokesperson ezra de muns said in a written statement.
“moreover, each candidate recruited hundreds of new members during the race, increasing the party’s membership by a factor of 4.5, bringing it to a total of over 6,000 members.”
de muns added that the leadership campaign was “an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, mobilize our base and reaffirm our ongoing enthusiasm for our party.”
since the leadership vote, rabouin has named katahwa co-chairperson of projet montréal’s election campaign, along with caroline bourgeois, the borough mayor of rivière-des-prairies—pointe-aux-trembles.
rabouin appointed katahwa as a co-chair because they “demonstrated complementary leadership styles during the leadership race, as well as a strong capacity for mobilization,” de muns said. he added that rabouin appointed bourgeois for similar reasons.
on top of the donations he collected, rabouin also personally loaned $5,000 to his leadership campaign. reimbursement of the loan along with other campaign expenses brought his total campaign spending to $25,387.
katahwa spent $20,447 on her campaign.
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the spending limit for each leadership candidate was $30,000.
the montreal election campaign officially kicks off in mid-september.
for the mayoralty, rabouin will face off against ensemble montréal’s new leader, soraya martinez ferrada, and against craig sauvé, a sud-ouest borough city councillor who is running for a new party, transition montréal. sauvé is a former member of projet montréal.
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